Home  >> Stories  >> The Tale Spinner #2018-06

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IN THIS ISSUE

• Carol Dilworth writes about having dinner with a celebrated author
• In this Heroic Story, John Elliott tells about many heroes with the same goal
• Burke Dykes shares this story about one woman´s way of making a difference
• Kate Brookfield forwards these definitions of Newfie medical terms
• Irene Harvalias thinks that doctors´ offices are being run like assembly lines
• Marilyn Magid sends a story about two crews working on storm damage
• Sites are suggested by Carol Hansen, Irene Harvalias, Judith English, and Tom Telfer

Carol Dilworth recalls

DINNER WITH PENELOPE FITZGERALD

In August 1993 I went on a William Morris Society of Canada tour of the U.K. On one of our final nights, U.K. Society members hosted the Canadians in their homes in small groups. Booker Prize winner Penelope Fitzgerald, an active member of the U.K. Society, offered to host two of the travellers. She did this because she had been so impressed with her treatment in Canada when she read at the Harbourfront Reading Series.

When the tour leader asked a few days before the event if anyone had a preference for whose home to visit, I immediately said that my friend and I would like to go to Penelope Fitzgerald´s. I recognized her name but couldn´t remember why. Of course when I remembered I realized that I hadn´t read a single word that she´d written. So we scoured second-hand bookshops and found a copy of The Bookshop, which we both memorized. My friend is a sculptor and a former history teacher and I don´t think she´d heard of Penelope Fitzgerald, although she is extremely well read. I certainly got an earful about volunteering us and this increased my nervousness. Neither of us had met someone this famous before.

On the appointed evening, one of the U.K. members picked us up at the university residence. She was also invited to dinner and was a good pre- and post-dinner travelling companion. She helped keep the conversation going during the evening.

Penelope Fitzgerald lived in Highgate in a house with one of her daughters, the son-in-law, a small child and a new baby. Ms. Fitzgerald had her own quarters; we spent the evening in the daughter´s part of the house. The family continued its normal routine. The children were just going to bed and they spent a few minutes interacting with all of us. We were offered sherry and Ms. Fitzgerald was interested in where we´d been on our trip. I´m sure everyone realized how nervous we were and they were charming and very down to earth.

Neither of us wanted to seem like fawning idiots so we stayed away from personal questions and let the family lead the discussion. The daughter was a professor at the University of London (chemistry, I think). She was extremely youthful, like her mother. The son-in-law was an investment banker (prematurely gray is my recollection although also extremely youthful) and he and I chatted during dinner about German financial statements. I think he may have been glad to have someone to talk to who spoke his language.

In eavesdropping on the other end of the table, I heard Ms. Fitzgerald use a line that she used in The Bookshop about not marrying men who come home for lunch. I smiled and hoped that she realized that I recognized it.

After dinner we all went into one of the other rooms to admire the William Morris wallpaper and then we left.

There was at least one point where Ms. Fitzgerald and I made a personal contact. I have written a few textbooks and business publications and someone (probably the lady who drove us to the event) asked me if I was working on something at the moment.

Ms. Fitzgerald immediately jumped in and said that was bad luck to talk about it before it was finished and said that´s why she hadn´t asked me about my work. We had at least one other point in common and it probably came up in the conversation. Earlier that year, I spent six weeks teaching in the former Soviet republic. On two weekends I went into Russia. I later read that Ms. Fitzgerald has a keen interest in Russia. I do too, and even more so at that time. It seems like fate that I had the privilege to meet her.

John Elliott from Missouri reminisces about

MANY HEROES, ONE GOAL

Two days before September 11, 2001, our youngest child was born. He had health problems immediately, and had to be Life-Flighted from the Army hospital at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, to Children´s Hospital at the University of Oklahoma in Oklahoma City. This was an hour and a half trip by car.

But my wife and I didn´t have a car. Our previous car had blown up, so I rode with a guy in my unit to work every day.

I had been talking with another member of my unit, about buying a car he hadn´t driven for two years. But he wanted all the money up front, as he´d been burned by other people before, and lost money.

That evening I called him up, and explained our situation. He immediately agreed to take payments I could afford - $150 a month. He was still paying $250 a month for the car, with nine payments left. He said to make the balance up with my tax refund. I asked him if he would make money on it, and he said no, and it didn´t matter.

The next morning I packed up a week´s clothes for my wife, our two children, and myself. I picked my wife up at the hospital, and headed up the highway for Oklahoma City.

About 20 minutes outside of Oklahoma City, we had a flat tire. I was stuck on the side of the highway, no spare, no jack, in almost 90-degree weather, with my wife and two children. About 30 cars passed, no one stopped, even with the hood raised to signal car trouble.

Finally, a dump truck (of all things) pulled over. He took me a mile up the road to Newcastle. It was another mile to the tire shop. Once there, I explained my predicament of neither jack nor spare, and they handed me a jack to borrow.

Newcastle is a small town, with no taxi service, so I asked where the police station was. I walked a few blocks to the police station, and explained the situation to the officer there, who was very rude. He said they weren´t a taxi service.

I resigned myself to walking the two miles back to the car, and started on my way.

I got about a half mile down the road when a police cruiser with two officers stopped me.

It was the officer who was so rude to me and his police chief, who had learned about the situation through the dispatcher. They drove me to the car and waited while I took the flat off. Then they took me to the tire shop for the repair, and finally back to the car to install the repaired tire. I then returned the jack to the tire shop.

My son spent three weeks in the hospital, and is now a healthy five-year-old. I wish I could go back and thank all those who helped us to be by his side when he was so ill.

ED. NOTE: E-mail subscriptions to HeroicStories are free. Sign up here: HeroicStories.org.

Burke Dykes shares this story with us:

ALL THE DIFFERENCE IN THE WORLD

Every Sunday morning, I take a light jog around a park near my home. There´s a lake located in one corner of the park. Each time I jog by this lake, I see the same elderly woman sitting at the water´s edge with a small metal cage sitting beside her.

This past Sunday my curiosity got the best of me, so I stopped jogging and walked over to her. As I got closer, I realized that the metal cage was in fact a small trap. There were three turtles, unharmed, slowly walking around the base of the trap. She had a fourth turtle in her lap that she was carefully scrubbing with a spongy brush.

"Hello," I said. "I see you here every Sunday morning. If you don´t mind my nosiness, I´d love to know what you´re doing with these turtles."

She smiled. "I´m cleaning off their shells," she replied. "Anything on a turtle´s shell, like algae or scum, reduces the turtle´s ability to absorb heat and impedes its ability to swim. It can also corrode and weaken the shell over time."

"Wow! That´s really nice of you!" I exclaimed.

She went on: "I spend a couple of hours each Sunday morning, relaxing by this lake and helping these little guys out. It´s my own strange way of making a difference."

"But don´t most freshwater turtles live their whole lives with algae and scum hanging from their shells?" I asked.

"Yep, sadly, they do," she replied

I scratched my head. "Well then, don´t you think your time could be better spent? I mean, I think your efforts are kind and all, but there are fresh water turtles living in lakes all around the world. And 99% of these turtles don´t have kind people like you to help them clean off their shells. So, no offense … but how exactly are your localized efforts here truly making a difference?"

The woman giggled aloud. She then looked down at the turtle in her lap, scrubbed off the last piece of algae from its shell, and said, "Sweetie, if this little guy could talk, he´d tell you I just made all the difference in the world."

The moral: You can change the world - maybe not all at once, but one person, one animal, and one good deed at a time. Wake up every morning and pretend that what you do makes a difference. It does.

Kate Brookfield forwards these irreverent definitions of

A NEWFIE MEDICAL DICTIONARY

Artery - The study of paintings

Bacteria - Back door to cafeteria

Barium - What doctors do when patients die

Benign - What you be after you be eight

Caesarean Section - A neighbourhood in Rome

Catscan - Searching for Kitty

Cauterize - Made eye contact with her

Colic - a sheep dog

Coma - A punctuation mark

Dilate - To live long

Enema - Not a friend

Fester - Quicker than someone else

Fibula - A small lie

Impotent - Distinguished, well known

Labour Pain - Getting hurt at work

Medical Staff - A doctor´s cane

Morbid - A higher offer

Nitrates - Cheaper than day rates

Node - I knew it

Outpatient - A person who has fainted

Pelvis - Second cousin to Elvis

Post Operative - A letter carrier

Recovery Room - Place to do upholstery

Rectum - Nearly killed him

Secretion - Hiding something

Seizure - Roman emperor

Tablet - A small table

Terminal Illness - Getting sick at the airport

Tumour - One plus one more

Urine - Opposite of you´re out

Irene Harvalias forwards this story about

ASSEMBLY LINE MEDICAL CARE

Those of us who spend much time in a doctor´s office should appreciate this! Doesn´t it seem more and more that physicians are running their practices like an assembly line. Here´s what happened to Kevin, who had shingles:

Kevin walked into a doctor´s office and the receptionist asked him what he had. Kevin said: "Shingles."

So she wrote down his name, address, and medical insurance number and told him to have a seat.

Fifteen minutes later a nurse´s aide came out and asked Kevin what he had. Kevin said, "Shingles."

So she wrote down his height, weight, a complete medical history, and told Kevin to wait in the examining room.

A half an hour later a nurse came in and asked Kevin what he had. Kevin said, "Shingles."

So the nurse gave Kevin a blood test, a blood pressure test, an electrocardiogram, and told Kevin to take off all his clothes and wait for the doctor.

An hour later the doctor came in and found Kevin sitting patiently in the nude and asked Kevin what he had. Kevin said, "Shingles."

The doctor asked, "Where?"

Kevin said, "Outside on the truck. Where do you want me to unload them?"

Marilyn Magid forwards a story about

REPAIRING STORM DAMAGE

Two extra work crews were hired by the local power company to help replace some hydro poles that had been knocked over in a recent storm.

At the end of the day the boss asked the first crew, "How many poles did you put in?"

The lead hand replied that they had installed 12 poles.

"Not bad," said the boss. He then asked the second crew how many poles they had been able to install.

The lead hand of the second crew proudly announced, "Three poles, sir."

"What?" exclaimed the boss. "The other crew did 12! How could you guys only manage three?"

The second crew leader replied, "Yeah, they did 12, but look at how much they left sticking out of the ground!"

Here are some interesting sites to watch

SUGGESTED SITES

Carol Hanse forwards the URL for a site showing 30 photos of kangaroos, cats, capybaras, dogs, deer, squirrels, and many other animals that intruded upon many important sporting events:

Irene Harvalias sends this link to a video of polar bears dancing on ice:

Judith English suggests this site for a story from the New York Times about the possibility that plants may be conscious:

Tom Telfer sends this link to a video we have seen before but which is still funny - Pigeon Impossible:

Tom also forwards the URL for a compilation of lucky moments involving cars, motorcycles, basketball players, and even bank robbers: